You Ever Get Tired of This?

vicious said:
This has been in the front of my head lately as well. I have to actively remind myself that I don't have to buy something just because I said I wanted it, or because I said it was good, or whatever stupid excuse that will bite me in the ass later when I realize it wasn't worth it. Nobody cares what I do except me and my family. Nobody is going to show up at my doorstep and say, "BUT YOU SAID YOU WANTED A ELECTORNIC SUPER SONIC FIGHTERS v2 MAJOR BLUDD FIGURE!" if I don't pre-order it.
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I’ve had that “Who’s your imaginary friend that you’re building this collection to impress?” conversation with myself plenty of times.
 
vicious said:
Nobody is going to show up at my doorstep and say, "BUT YOU SAID YOU WANTED A ELECTORNIC SUPER SONIC FIGHTERS v2 MAJOR BLUDD FIGURE!" if I don't pre-order it.
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We can arrange something if you want.


I do this a little bit too. Not so much because I want to impress anyone or because I think anyone will see my collection. It's more about me being like hyper-aware of being a hypocrite. So I feel like if I say 'oh, I'm definitely going to get that figure when it comes out' and then I don't... I'm a hypocrite.
I know that's not actually TRUE. But it's where my brain goes and it makes it a lot harder for me to back out of buying stuff if I publicly say I want to. It was way worse for me when I was trying to be more supportive of the small guys like Boss Fight. One of the core complaints you see from companies like them or Chicken Fried or whatever is that people talk a big game about what they want, but when you make it they don't show up to buy it.
So I'm also hyper-aware of trying not to be that guy.
 
Damien said:
One of the core complaints you see from companies like them or Chicken Fried or whatever is that people talk a big game about what they want, but when you make it they don't show up to buy it.
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One of the things that has come up in MCDM streams a couple of times, and I have to say from my own experiences I think it's true, is that if you're a company never ask your fans what they want if them telling you doesn't involve them giving you their credit card number. The fans, in a vacuum, in a hypothetical, will *always* say "yes". "Oh I'd totally buy that". Sure they would...

This is why I'm really tolerant of the crowdfund model in ways I think a lot of fans aren't, because I know it is a very effective way to avoid putting yourself out of business as an indie creator if you actually treat it like what it's supposed to be.
 
Ru1977 said:
Yeah I have some of that too. I usually try to make a big public thing about changing my mind to make me feel better because ultimately no one else really cares.
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Ya gotta get comfortable with being mercurial. Don't let yesterday you hold today you prisoner. Fuck that guy, he didn't know what today me knows, I owe him nothing. Reserve the right to have a better idea later.
 
Ru1977 said:
Yeah I have some of that too. I usually try to make a big public thing about changing my mind to make me feel better because ultimately no one else really cares.
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If it makes you feel any better, I love ya', but I could not rattle off an even semi-accurate list of things you've said you were or were not going to buy.



JakeEkiss said:
One of the things that has come up in MCDM streams a couple of times, and I have to say from my own experiences I think it's true, is that if you're a company never ask your fans what they want if them telling you doesn't involve them giving you their credit card number. The fans, in a vacuum, in a hypothetical, will *always* say "yes". "Oh I'd totally buy that". Sure they would...

This is why I'm really tolerant of the crowdfund model in ways I think a lot of fans aren't, because I know it is a very effective way to avoid putting yourself out of business as an indie creator if you actually treat it like what it's supposed to be.
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Oh yeah, Matt has brought this up a few different times. I think he might have the NICEST way I've ever heard of basically saying 'we don't actually care what you have to say.' (I know he doesn't mean it precisely like that.)

I'll even admit I was guilty of this. When Boss Fight was talking about releasing the individually-carded/bagged bone white HACKS skeletons, I was like: "I will buy at least one of those every time I make an order because you can never have too many skeletons." Well, my guys, you can. And I did. And I had to stop buying them. And even though I think I ended up with like 17 skeletons, I still somehow felt BAD that I wasn't buying more.

I'm also very okay with crowdfunds. My biggest problem with them is I think they're overused by companies that do not need them who are flooding the space. The Four Fucking Horsemen should not be CROWDFUNDING fucking anything and everyone that thinks elsewise can lick the underside of my balls until it's painful for the both of us.
 
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vicious said:
This has been in the front of my head lately as well. I have to actively remind myself that I don't have to buy something just because I said I wanted it, or because I said it was good, or whatever stupid excuse that will bite me in the ass later when I realize it wasn't worth it. Nobody cares what I do except me and my family. Nobody is going to show up at my doorstep and say, "BUT YOU SAID YOU WANTED A ELECTORNIC SUPER SONIC FIGHTERS v2 MAJOR BLUDD FIGURE!" if I don't pre-order it.
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Cynical, but this has become my process:

Occasionally I ask myself if (toy, game, skill, whatever your poison) is making me better and does it help with any of my personal goals or ambitions. Mental health. Relationships. Ambitions. Skill sets.

The reality is no one that I have ever truly cared for or about is impressed by my Warcraft feats, PlayStation Trophies, comic collection, toys. None of that even feels good the way that improving weight lifting or guitar or piano does. It isn't even satisfyingly tangible to look at and see where my time went, like art, writing, cooking, fitness.

And over time I was able to rewire my dopamine and the rest of my neurodiverse self sabotage shit to really prefer just working on my drawing, painting, guitar, skating.

These are things that also make me feel good about myself. I think they make me interesting to the people I'm trying to be peers with or connect to. I can say that because I've had the conversations and measured the changes and achieved some goals.

The short version I run in my head is, "Is this going to be interesting to someone I really want to make an impression on?" And while my hobbies are for me, and self care, it's the extent of these interests and a balance. I've never developed a girlfriend or wife or business relationship or mentorship opportunity or even a real friendship solely off of toys. Or comic. Or movie trivia or MMO world firsts. I have with the "tangible" stuff.

This isn't a judgment on anyone here because we all collect for our own reasons. And I know there are many people here that have hit career highs I can only aspire to or have relationships I wish I had. We are all different.

I'm just saying this is how I approached and how I shook many of these demons that we are discussing, while seeking to keep and enjoy the hobby and make my inner child and mental health work for it. I know I'd be miserable if I just got rid of it all. I dated a woman who once did that for me.

But it's also meaningless if I can't forge other connections and feel satisfied in my whole life.
 
I defnitely had a "Why do I do this to myself" moment last night - I was reorganizing my legends, swapping out which versions of which characters were on display, and I found one character had just degraded and the leg snapped off at the thigh, and a bunch of those old skinny female body figures had warped legs from tipping over in their bin, and another character just... felt brittle, like the hip joints were starting to collapse? And I thought: I really don't think I can enjoy all of these as much as I should. But it was more a space issue in my own home than whether I want to own them. I don't have Sasquatch on a shelf right now because I need room for Alpha Flight, but I'd be actively annoyed if I didn't have Alpha Flight.

I guess what bugs me isn't "I spent too much on this stupid thing" but "life is too busy and housing is too expensive to enjoy the stuff I love." So I guess I'm tired of life more than I'm tired of collecting.

altcunningham said:
I'm just saying this is how I approached and how I shook many of these demons that we are discussing, while seeking to keep and enjoy the hobby and make my inner child and mental health work for it. I know I'd be miserable if I just got rid of it all. I dated a woman who once did that for me.
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I let myself get shamed out of geeky stuff by the women in my life in my 20s, spent my 30s just sort of pretending I didn't care, and now in my 40s I sometimes wonder if I were single again how I'd explain away all this crap that I love, but also I'm at an age where I feel like I got the last chopper out of 'nam with relationships and would probably be happily alone for whatever time I have left so I wouldn't need to worry about it.

Man, it's definitely almost the end of the year, I'm at my peak "life is simultaneously too short and too long" mental state...
 
Money-wise, it's so up and down for me. Some months I look at what I spent and it makes me feel ashamed at my lack of control, others I look and am proud of myself for "somehow reining it in", when it reality, it's just that very few- if any- things I wanted released during that time. So much of it is out of my control, really- I know I can just cancel the pre-order, but especially nowadays there's no way to really know when something may hit. You don't always get a heads-up email, or you may miss it, and a wave that was due 4 months from now suddenly hits. And yeah, I could return it, but at that point it's like, "well it's already come all this way, the delivery guy worked hard to get it here, the money is spent, etc." A million excuses.

I feel that goes for the "but you said you wanted it" argument too. I can talk about wanting something until I run out of words to say, but if the company puts it out at a time that's not convenient for me, that's out of my control, and not really anyone's fault, per se. Or if they put it out and I see that it's crappy before I get it.

I think, like others have said, it's about re-wiring your brain a bit. I can spend $100 on figures easily and feel just fine, but spending $100 on food, clothes, etc. always feels like a punch to the nuts. Those are obviously far more important things, but I just don't get the same amount of joy out of them (food aside, perhaps). I suppose when you think about it, toys and food are both ways of flushing money down the toilet. It's all in how you look at it and how you process the billion different variables
 
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